Dark Skies Wednesday night.

Alkaid
Eta Ursae Majoris (η UMa, η Ursae Majoris) is a star in the constellation Ursa Major. It has the traditional names Alkaid (or Elkeid) and Benetnash (Benetnasch). Alkaid is the most eastern (leftmost) star in the Big Dipper (Plough) asterism. However, unlike most stars of the Big Dipper, it is not a member of the Ursa Major moving group. With an apparent visual magnitude of +1.84,[2] it is the third brightest star in the constellation and one of the brightest stars in the night sky.

From My own backyard. Attached to my Orion 120. Shot at F2.8 a 1.9 Second exposure at iso3200

The Cats Eye Nebula

The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543, Caldwell 6) is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Draco. Structurally, it is one of the most complex nebulae known, with high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope observations revealing remarkable structures such as knots, jets, bubbles and sinewy arc-like features. In the center of the Cat's Eye there is a bright and hot star; around 1000 years ago this star lost its outer envelope, producing the nebula.
It was discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786, and was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomer William Huggins in 1864. The results of the latter investigation demonstrated for the first time that planetary nebulae consist of hot gases, but not stars. Currently the nebula has been observed across the fullelectromagnetic spectrum, from far-infrared to X-rays.
Modern studies reveal several mysteries. The intricacy of the structure may be caused in part by material ejected from a binary central star, but as yet, there is no direct evidence that the central star has a companion. Also, measurements of chemical abundances reveal a large discrepancy between measurements done by two different methods, the cause of which is uncertain. Hubble Telescope observations revealed a number of faint rings around the Eye, which are spherical shells ejected by the central star in the distant past. The exact mechanism of those ejections, however, is unclear

                                                                 The Cats Eye Nebula     F2.8    4 second exposure at ISO3200

Mars, M3 and Me.

The top picture is that of M3 That I took tonight with my telescope. Wikipedia states,  is a globular cluster of stars in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici. It was discovered by Charles Messier on May 3, 1764,[7] and resolved into stars by William Herschel around 1784. Since then, it has become one of the best-studied globular clusters. Identification of the cluster's unusually large variable star population was begun in 1913 by American astronomer Solon Irving Bailey and new variable members continue to be identified up through 2004.


Arcturus can be used to help locate M3  


Messier 3 with amateur telescope
Many amateur astronomers consider it one of the finest northern globular clusters, following only Messier 13. M3 has an apparent magnitude of 6.2, making it a difficult naked eye target even with dark conditions. With a moderate-sized telescope, the cluster is fully defined. It can be a challenge to locate through the technique of star hopping, but can be found by looking almost exactly halfway along an imaginary line connecting the bright star Arcturus to Cor Caroli. Using a telescope with a 25 cm (9.8 in) aperture, the cluster has a bright core with a diameter of about 6 arcminutes and spans a total of 12 arcminutes.


This cluster is one of the largest and brightest, and is made up of around 500,000 stars. It is estimated to be 8 billion years old. It is located at a distance of about 33,900 light-years away from Earth.


The Next Photo is that of MARS  that I took. Just a fine night for star-hopping.

Lunar Neighbor

A Good night for observing. All photos shot with an old kodak 6.1MP camera mounted to a 30mm flat eyepiece. I cropped them out in photoshop but they did not need much cleaning up.

Deep Space

Experimenting with deep space and limitations of my camera.

The Full Moon

It was a grand night bringing back a childhood memory. I remember as a young teen being chosen by the bishop to serve at high mass on good Friday then after mass and my responsibilities to the church in its religious preparations I would bicycle home to prepare my equipment for an evening of viewing hoping to get a glimpse of something beautiful and spectacular. I saw Saturn tonight in all its splendor however I find that I do not own the necessary equipment to bring it to publish.

I did tonight stretch the abilities of my starshooter IV. Summarizing after a year that its only real significant value is that of most bright and brilliant objects such as that confined to lunar activity as I share with you now.

Venus through a telescope

Good night for viewing and experimenting.

Moon, Venus and Jupiter

Southwestern Skies just after sunset. I managed to capture the Moon at Cresent, Jupiter and Venus. The wide field shot was also setup alon unguided with 8 sec max exposure.

Tonight, no new equipment yet but its like I seek the holy grail. Something outside of my imagination that continues to elude me.

Cold Nights

A wonderful night. The back patio was clear and so were the evening skies. A lot more than I expected, but winter has held off on the snow but the cold did prevail. I got some shots in before I and my equipment froze up. It did give me  an opportunity to see the limitations of my equipment as I can see or not see when the scope freezes up an how long before the cold forces the optics to reach fog limit. I appreciated the night sky just the same.